The Day the Music Died
by smoorman76
Summary: Amusia : a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch, but it also encompasses musical memory and recognition. Written for a prompt. Rating for language. One-shot.


_Amusia : a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch, but it also encompasses musical memory and recognition_.

A/N: This is the very first fanfic I have ever written, let alone published anywhere. It's the first thing I've actually managed to finish since high school. I'm rather proud of myself. :)

Thank you to **honeylocusttree** for the prompt, and to everybody else at **hoodie_time**, for being such a nice bunch of people I felt comfortable enough to stick my toes in.

I did almost no research for this, beyond the Wikipedia article provided by the original prompter, so please ignore anything glaringly wrong. I don't have a beta, however, so if you find any typos, please let me know.

Title from American Pie by Don McLean

The Day the Music Died

.

It was just another day, another hunt. Witches, a coven of them, brewing potions, sacraficing rabbits, hexing the neighbors, all the regular cliches. They were even meeting in an old, supposedly-haunted house out in the country. Breaking them up wasn't terribly diffcult, really, although the witches put up a fight. The Winchesters never realized the coven's leader had gone out earlier that day and arrived back just in time to see her sisters killed by the two hunters, so her hitting Dean upside the head with a crowbar as they left the building was a complete surprise. They took care of her, though, and as Dean didn't seem to have a concussion, they just packed up and left town.

Dean has a tendency to hum or half-sing as he drives, during the long hours between _'so where are we headed' _and _'we need to stop, man, I can't keep my eyes open anymore'._ He's got a rather good singing voice and Sam had long ago perfected the art of tuning him out most of the time, so it usually doesn't bother him much. Except when, like now, he's being obnoxious on purpose.

"Goddamn it, Dean, would you stop that?" Sam snaps. "You're driving me crazy."

"Stop what? I'm not doing anything." Dean's doing a good job of sounding sincere, but Sam isn't buying it.

"You're singing _Houses of the Holy_ to _When the Levee Breaks._ Stop it."

Something flickers through Dean's eyes, there and gone. "Sure thing, Sammy." He reaches down and turns the music up.

A few days later they're in God-knows-where, USA, and Sam's listening to an indie band on the laptop's speakers as he does research, since Dean's out interviewing a witness and isn't there to mock him for having no taste.

"Hey," He says, looking up as Dean enters the room, "Did she know anything?"

"Not really, I - what are you listening to?"

"This indie band Jess got me into. I don't want to hear about it, man, I like it and you weren't here."

That strange _something_ runs across Dean's face again and he shrugs. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Did you find anything online?"

The next hunt is a haunted music store, the kind that sells vinyl records and eight-tracks. It's a spirit attached to a copy of some no-name band's only record, thankfully, so the (smoking hot) owner doesn't give them any grief about burning it. She's older than Dean, if not by much, dark-eyed and curvy. She and Dean have spent almost as much time talking about their favorite bands as they have checking each other out.

"It's a good thing my friend knew how get ahold of you," she says, flirtatiously. "I didn't know what to do and I didn't want anybody else to get hurt."

Dean grins back at her. "We're happy to help any time you need somethin', darlin'. It's what we do," he drawls.

Sam rolls his eyes as she coos back. "I'm going back to the motel. Don't wake me up when you come in." Dean walks off with the woman, arm around her waist.

Sam is just getting settled in, ready to spend the night without fighting over the remote, when the door flings open and Dean charges in and slams into the bathroom. When he comes out, Sam's all ready to roast him for failing to close the deal, until he gets a look at his face. Dean is freaking out about something, and it's _not _getting turned down. "Dean, what happened?" he asks, concerned.

"I don't want to talk about it," Dean growls,"Nothing happened. Go to bed, we're leaving in the morning, early."

"Dean-"

"No, Sam! No. Sleep. We are _not _talking about it." He snaps the lights off and gets into bed, leaving Sam to wonder.

Still another hunt, and whatever happened with the record store woman is continuing to ruin Dean's mood. He keeps taking off in the Impala for long drives, to 'get some air' and coming back ready to spit nails. Sam decides that discretion is the better part of valor and keeps his mouth shut, not wanting to have his brother's fist in it. He just keeps an eye on Dean and stays out of his way. Dean's entitled to moodiness,but Sam wishes he wasn't the only available target.

Dean keeps vanishing erratically for the next several weeks, although his overall mood becomes somewhat less bitchy. Until one day Sam comes back to the motel to find Dean sitting in the car, in the parking lot in front of their room, with the music turned up so loud the sound is distorted.

"Goddamnit Dean! What the hell is your problem?" He wrenches the door open and stops. Dean is crying.

Dean.

Is _crying. _

Dean does not cry. Ever. Sam can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he's seen that happen. _OhshitohshitohSHIT_, he thinks, and crouches down next to Dean.

"Dean, man, what's wrong?" His tone is as gentle and soothing as he can make it. "C'mon, Dean, let me help you."

With a vicious twist, Dean snaps the radio off. "I can't hear the music, Sam. It all sounds the same. Rock, country, pop, friggin' _opera_ - it all sounds the same." Dean looks over at him. "I went to the doctor today. He said it's brain damage, permanent, untreatable. I'll never hear it again." Dean takes a deep breath and begins to sob.

Being Dean, however, he doesn't let out more than a couple before he sucks in another deep breath and stops. Shoving Sam out of the way, he gets out of the car and goes into the motel room, sitting down on the bed with his face in his hands, and Sam can just _see_ him forcibly beginning to rebuild his defenses. _Goddamnit_, Sam thinks. _Goddamn_.

Even with everything in the last few years, all the various hunts, Lucifer's rising, the Apocalypse, their multiple deaths, neither of them had suffered any kind of permanent, lasting, injury. Granted, this isn't the same as losing an arm or leg, but hunting is a life with few pleasures and Dean's just lost one of his. It's one of the things that defines Dean: the car, the attitude, the cock-rock music. And now it's just one more thing the hunting life has stolen.

"How did it happen? What did the doctor say? Why-" '_didn't you say anything to me?' _The pains and the secrets and the lies of the demon-blood and the soullessness and the year they lived apart mean that they aren't quite as close as they used to be. It's getting better, but. Sam can see why Dean wouldn't mention this sort of thing.

"I started noticing it after that bitch with the crowbar, remember her, Sam? Everything sounded the same, I couldn't... It didn't seem like anything to worry about. It's happened before-"

"Dammit, Dean-"

"It went away on its own! Never lasted more than a couple days. But this time... this time, it didn't go away, it just got worse. I thought maybe it was a curse or something, but nothing I did got rid of it. Then the record store chick - she said she had an original vinyl of Led Zeppelin II and she tried to play it and it was just noise. When I went for all those drives, I kept goin' through radio stations, lookin' for music and it was _all _noise. All of it." Dean stood up and began to pace around the room. "I met this guy working construction, knows how to game the health care system better than we ever managed. He hooked me up with some doctor's appointments and they did all these tests. I forget what they called it, but it's never going away." He runs his hands agitatedly over his chin, his arms, the fronts of his thighs."Said it was caused by gettin' hit in the head too many times. Said I was lucky I didn't end up with worse impairment. And he's right, y'know, but God, Sam - "His voice breaks, his face devastated.

Seeing Dean like this, his strong, macho big brother, miserable and bereaved, makes Sam do something he would ordinarily never, ever do. He goes over and pulls Dean into a hug, tucking Dean's face into his shoulder. Dean struggles a little and then just gives in to his need for comfort. It doesn't last very long, but his face is clearer when Sam lets go.

Dean scrubs his hands over his face, draws a deep breath in through his nose. He does a little shake-and-toss of his head that Sam knows means the conversation is now over and will not be mentioned again. "So,"Dean says, firmly. "What do we have lined up next?"

"There's a haunted house in Vermont, killed six people in the last two months."

"Awesome. Let's go."

"...Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy?"

"Does this mean I get to pick the music from now on?" Dean shoots him a look, wide-eyed shock turning into a glare when he sees Sam's smirk.

"Hell no, bitch, driver picks, shotgun shuts his cakehole. You know that." Dean charges out the door, into the Impala.

Sam follows. "Yeah, Dean, I know that."


End file.
